Samsung to Swap Snapdragon for Exynos with Intel LTE on Galaxy S5 Prime and Beyond

Samsung looks to be making a new partnership to get its own in-house line of Exynos processors inside of all of its new phones later this year, and it’s one that doesn’t usually turn many heads in the mobile arena. Intel’s latest LTE modems look to be integrated on Samsung’s next Exynos chipsets, namely the Exynos 5430, and could finally be the replacement Samsung has been searching for over the past couple of years since LTE became a mobile trend. Not familiar with the history behind this? Basically Samsung’s own in-house chipsets, the Exynos lineup, don’t have an LTE modem that can easily be placed on-board without causing significant battery drain or performance issues, depending on which model we’re talking about here of course. This has led Samsung to choose the Qualcomm Snapdragon series of chipsets for years now for their LTE-enabled phones, as the Snapdragon lineup has a built-in LTE modem that’s extremely power efficient compared to many out there. Now with Intel’s help it looks like Samsung might finally be able to get an LTE modem that doesn’t suck juice onto its next round of phones, and it might start with the Galaxy S5 Prime.

Yes that ugly rumor that’s been floating around for a while now seems more true than ever thanks to the findings by Sam Mobile. Documents from Samsung are showing that a prototype deemed “klte” was supposed to be the original Galaxy S5, complete with a Quad-HD 1440 x 2560 pixel 5.2-inch screen. Given that the Galaxy S5 that launched last week features a 5.1-inch 1080p screen, it’s pretty obvious that this is going to be another device altogether, and may be the first to feature this LTE-enabled Exynos chipset from Samsung and Intel. The KQ, as it’s now called internally, shows up in a document complete with the same Quad-HD screen and Intel XMM7260 LTE modem, as well as the Exynos 5430 chipset onboard. The same document also tips it as a European model rather than a Korean one, meaning that this isn’t some special premium model meant only for Samsung’s home country of South Korea as has been done in the past.

The Exynos 5430 isn’t just a 5422 with an LTE modem though, it’s received a speed boost as well. The Mali GPU inside has been bumped up to 600MHz from 533MHz, and the processor itself looks to be pushing all the way up to 2.1GHz as well. The Intel XMM7260 LTE model on board is a Category 6 LTE modem, meaning speeds up to 300mbit/s if the network allows it. Right now we’re only seeing a European variant of this model though, which tells us Samsung might not be quite ready to launch the Galaxy S5 Prime in the US without the help of the Snapdragon 805 chipset. While this decision seems strange it might be better for Samsung to stick with something tried and true for now to get a new model out in time to compete with the LG G3, which is slated to launch in a few months with specs that handily beat the regular Galaxy S5. More than likely Samsung is also trying their hand at what Apple did last year with the iPhone 5s and 5c in providing two models that are similar, with one clearly being superior over the other. Right now Samsung has 2 big models per year with dozens of cheaper devices available to serve different markets and price points.